Kate wished she could climb into her old bed and pull the covers over herself. Virginia would be lush with June showers. Mr. Cole had gotten a great bargain—beehives, barn cats, house, and that lovely, rainy land.
Her tears flowed. If the others saw, let them think she was crying for the reburied child.
* * *
THE trail was full of death. Emigrants died from fights, lightning strikes, and accidental drowning in rough rivers. They were run over by wheels or kicked by draft animals. Whole parties strayed from the trail and expired from hunger or thirst. Kate averted her eyes from animals’ bleached skulls and ribcages.
One day they heard a bell tolling and came upon a funeral. A man was striking the bell with a hammer. Susan gave the mourners a pan of gingerbread. Olivia chided her, and Kate felt it wasn’t the gift Olivia begrudged them, but Susan’s sympathy.
“Are you all right?” Kate asked Olivia, when they were alone.
Olivia gave a little laugh. “I feel like I forgot something, like I need to go home and get it, but I don’t know what it is.”
* * *
“DON’T drink alkali water,” warned the seasoned travelers, “and don’t let your animals.”
For now, there was enough water and game—pronghorn, deer, and sage hens, which were delicious when roasted over the fire.
Sometimes wild mustang ponies thundered past. One morning, a buffalo wandered near camp, shaggy and enormous. Martin aimed his gun but missed, and it shambled away.
“The army wants them all gone,” James said, “because that’d get rid of the Indians.”
Fifteen, twenty miles a day they covered, yet they needed to move faster. From Missouri, the journey to Oregon or California took at least four months, usually five. It was already July, and winter would come early on the trail.
Kate believed they were charmed. To others came the mishaps and misfortunes—broken axles, capsized ferries, soured potatoes, and bouts of dysentery, typhoid, and measles. People often had themselves to blame for their perils, and illness could strike anywhere. Those who sickened might have done so at home. Her party enjoyed health and well-being.
They bathed in rivers, men and women separately.
“Goodness, my hair’s turning white everywhere,” Mrs. Spruill said.
“Oh, Ma, don’t say that,” Hannah said.
Olivia kept charge of the medical supplies. There were clean needles and silk thread to sew torn skin, a bottle of laudanum for pain, sassafras root for catarrh, peppermint for upset stomach. They had pooled their food and bought more, so they had plenty—hams, bacon, apples, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pickles, jam, and dried beans, peas, and pumpkin slices. The Spruill children found Kate’s last few jars of honey, packed in straw.
“Let’s save that for later,” she said. Its scent would make her homesick.
Olivia gave each child a spoonful of molasses instead. Olivia was wise, a sister to be admired. Kate could almost believe the conversation about the Edmistons hadn’t happened or she’d misunderstood. She was ashamed of her suspicions.
At night, white-throated sparrows sang in moonlit trees along the rivers, and the Milky Way arched above, magnificent and deeply silent. One night, when the others had gone to bed in the wagons, Kate stayed up, stargazing. Someone brushed her elbow. James.
“In the Greek myths,” he said, “Orion chased the Seven Sisters.”
“The hunter chased the girls?”
“Yes. They were scared, and they asked Zeus for help.”
“And what did he do?”
“He changed them into doves and put them in the sky.”
Wolves’ howls reached her ears. The eerie, discordant music gave her a reason to move closer to him. If he tried to kiss her, she’d let him.
“It’s my turn to keep watch,” he said, and was gone.
Day after day, she followed him with her eyes. He could turn her into a bird. He could turn her into anything he wanted to.
* * *
THE streets of Fort Kearny were full of soldiers. Susan stood up in her wagon, her calico dress straining over her belly, and a dozen hands reached out to help her climb down. What would it be like to be so pretty?
“Don’t you think you should stay here until the baby comes?” Kate asked.
“James wants to keep going,” Susan said.
Babies were being born all along the trail. Mothers would brandish a newborn and yell out its date of arrival. Other women were sick in the backs of their wagons or dead in childbirth. The trail belonged to men. Wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers were tugged along like the Spruills’ cow.
Olivia and Susan posted letters while Kate shopped at the fort’s store. At the counter, a woman ducked her head, trying to hide the purple bulges around her eyes.
Why were some beaten and others treated as queens?
Feeling bold, Kate met the soldiers’ gaze as she passed them in the streets. They numbered about six hundred under General Harney. Everyone knew their mission was to wipe out the Indians.
* * *
WHEN they left the fort, Kate rode backwards in the wagon, holding paper and pencils on her lap and teaching Constance and Ella Spruill how to draw, a bumpy endeavor. Just past a grain mill, a dot appeared and grew until it became a man running toward them. He was covered in flour, and he kept looking over his shoulder. Kate couldn’t help but laugh. She read his face and found nothing to fear.
“Come on up,” she said. “Is somebody chasing you?”
“My boss, but I think he gave up.”
He swung himself on board. His name was Hank Charles. He helped with the animals and paid for a ferry crossing, and as they moved deeper into Indian country, where the natives wanted guns, he pacified them with wire and gunpowder.
One day, several Sioux blocked the trail and pointed to Susan Edmiston.
“They like your hair,” Hank said. “They want it.”
Susan untied her ribbons and offered them. The Indians held up a knife. James stepped in front of her.
Hank spoke to the Indians and said to James, “Bring out the whiskey, quick.”
Peace was maintained, and later, Susan joked if her hair was going to be that troublesome, she should cut it off. She trembled as Olivia braided it. Kate’s own hair was light brown, long and shiny, but nobody would ever crave it as a trophy. That was one advantage to being plain.
One morning, Hank spotted a wagon train in the distance. “Think I’ll run up ahead.”
“You’re in a hurry, aren’t you?” Kate was sorry to see him go.
“Reckon so.” He jumped off, and that was goodbye.
* * *
THEY traveled through long hours of summer light, stopped at noon, and moved again until day’s end. Sharp stubs of dry grass irritated the feet of the oxen and the cow. Mr. Spruill cleansed the wounds and applied ointment, and the party lay by for three days so they could improve. Kate felt overwhelmed with anxiety. She tried to talk to Olivia, but she was silent and withdrawn, exhausted, Kate figured. She was glad when they set out again.
A towering landmark became visible at the horizon. For days, it beckoned, seeming to float above the flat earth. This was Chimney Rock, 250 miles past Fort Kearny. When they finally reached it, they joined other travelers milling around in hushed awe. A single pyramidal hill rose from scoured earth, topped by a three-hundred-foot rock pillar.
“Pointing